


Ribbon Red

by unrivaled_tapestry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, F/M, Light Angst, Light BDSM, M/M, Married Life, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Non-Sexual Submission, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrivaled_tapestry/pseuds/unrivaled_tapestry
Summary: Bernadetta has been married to Hubert for three years, and  they have both been married to Ferdinand for two. One night, Edelgard tells Bernadetta about something Hubert said towards the end of the war. And it's fine! Really. It's fine. But she still wishes he loved himself more.Or Bernadetta loves Hubert, but Hubert does not always love himself. Hubert loves Bernadetta, but she is not always kind to herself. Ferdinand loves them both dearly.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Bernadetta von Varley/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 16
Kudos: 71





	Ribbon Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoldenThreads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/gifts).



> For GoldenThreads!
> 
> Happy birthday to The Goop. Or, and I hope Google is not lying to me here: felix natalis! Here is a sweet (but still just a little angsty) Hubert/Ferdinand/Bernadetta polycule fic for you.
> 
> A couple mild warnings for this fic: there's some non-sexual BDSM, Bernadetta-standard anxiety issues, and Hubert-standard violence metaphors (though no actual violence in the fic).
> 
> Thank you to Nuanta for beta'ing this!!!

It started the way things usually did for Bernadetta, with a secret revealed that left an itch in her skin. Something she knew she shouldn’t pick at. She knew it would end up hurting if she did, but it was said and the words burrowed somewhere deep, quick as an arrow.

Neither she nor Edelgard drank often, and when they did, it was never in public--granted, Bernie didn’t like doing _anything_ in public. But on quiet nights when they hadn’t talked for a while they’d retreat to Edelgard’s room and have two of something that burned a little. Discussing politics was prohibited, and Bernadetta would have thought that with Edelgard having the crest of Seiros and the crest of Flames, one of them had to give some kind of tolerance? But no. Edelgard’s cheeks always reddened just a little of the way into her first drink.

Occasionally, Hubert prepared them something fancy before retreating to his quarters, sometimes with Ferdinand. And sometimes when he did that, Bernadetta would reach out, just a little, just to remind herself that she could and that he let her, just to feel the heat from his arm under her thin fingers, pull the smallest smile from him as he laid out mixers. He’d kiss her hand, always said he would see her later, and Bernie _burned up_ every time, her cheeks going as bright from embarrassment as Edelgard’s did from her drink.

When this happened, of course Edelgard saw, and she always looked like a self-satisfied cat that still had cream on her whiskers. Like she’d somehow gotten away with an even better scheme than watching Hubert fall in love (!) once by watching him fall in love twice. It made her so happy that it let Bernadetta think it could all actually be real, without caveats.

“You know,” Edelgard said. “I never thought I’d get to see him relax.”

“Has he? Relaxed I mean?” Bernadetta brushed down the front of her dress. “I’m sure we didn’t do that. I thought he was going to start b-bleeding from his eye when the cake had almonds in it at the first wedding.”

Edelgard cringed in assent. “Well, he’s more relaxed than he was. You can take my word on that.”

Her mind flashed to a tense, lurking figure she’d once been terrified of—a shadow with teeth, that snarled. Bernie had always known he was going to be tall and violent, back then. It took her too long to see that she only saw that side of him when people wanted to hurt her or the others, and he hurt those people instead.

Bernadetta’s cheeks were still warm. “If I’m honest. I always thought you might be angry. The two of you are so close. I just assumed...”

“Oh?” Edelgard raised a pale eyebrow.

“C-come on!” Bernadetta’s stomach sank. “Please don’t make me say it.”

“I know what you meant. And you weren’t the first.” Edelgard smirked. “Did I ever tell you Seteth pulled Hubert aside no less than three times to remind him about the school’s policy on the _avenues of affection_?”

“No!” It came out more like a squeak. “You didn’t. Did he get in trouble?”

Edelgard shook her head. “Seteth couldn’t catch us doing something we weren’t doing.”

“I had no idea.” That surprised Bernadetta. And it wasn’t that she would have known, exactly. Still, she blanched at the thought of Seteth giving her a talking to back at the Academy. She probably would have puked all over his suit. “Seems like he missed the...heresy.”

When she said that, she felt a pin in her heart as Edelgard’s eyes went grim, narrowed, and Bernie knew she’d stepped in it—because any memory of the Academy was chased at its heels by what came after. The last time any of them had seen Seteth, he’d been leading an attack, his scythe glittering as he cut men down while huge ballistae bolts rained down on the ramparts. Or rather, the last-last time they’d seen Seteth, he had Flayn on his wyvern, fleeing the smouldering buildings he’d led an army there to ruin.

After a heartbeat Bernadetta spent wanting to disappear into her own chest cavity like a turtle, Edelgard laughed it off again. “Well, I suppose that was for the best then.”

They left that thread of conversation where it was.

Towards the end of their last drink, they had begun sharing stories with each other—not all of them were about Hubert. Though Bernie knew that’s what he thought these nights were for…

“He has always been so _severe_.” Edelgard sounded conspiratorial. “And you know it burned me when he kept secrets.” She spoke as if it didn’t still burn her and he no longer kept secrets. “Once I pressed him, properly, and he said ‘Lady Edelgard, if you would prefer to treat this formally, then charge me with a crime. I would gladly bear my neck to the executioner.’”

Edelgard really had a very good Hubert impression, and she’d said it as though it was supposed to be funny. Bernie’s glass stopped in her hand. She wasn’t laughing.

“O-oh.” Bernie was barely aware when her response crawled out of her suddenly tight throat. “Y-you wouldn’t have, right?”

As if realizing she’d made an error, Edelgard scrambled to cover up what she’d said. “Of course not. He was just being stubborn and making a point, as usual.”

Something bubbled up in Bernie’s chest. How could he have said that? Granted, she knew exactly how he could have said it. He compared everything red to blood and brought up decay any chance he got. He was not just judge, jury, and assassin—he also performed autopsies and weighed the organs afterwards. He said things like ‘I will cut a bloody path’ while kissing Edelgard’s gloved hand and ‘We will burn together’ at hapless enemies in the field. Bernie had her arrows to make sure Hubert didn’t, in fact, burn, and Ferdinand had his horse and lance, and from a distance the two of them kept that vow from coming true.

Still, the thought made her sick, in some deep irrational pit of her stomach because she could _see_ it. Edelgard wouldn’t have done that. She never would have. She loved Hubert as much as Bernie or Feridnand did. She’d loved him longer, if differently. She also wasn’t a tyrant--if she was she would have killed Ferdinand and Varley’s daughter long before Hubert. But Bernie heard the casual disregard in his voice through Edelgard’s, the passion promising that he’d pluck out his own heart if Edelgard asked it, and it made her sad. It was an off-hand remark from near the end of the war, and Bernie’s eyes shouldn’t have been tearing up at the thought. She was making this awkward.

“I— Bernadetta, he didn’t mean it.” Edelgard’s eyes went soft, a little panicked. “You know how he is. And it was a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry!” The words poured out of her like hot water from the spout of a teapot. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. It just surprised me. It shouldn’t! That was a very Hubert thing to say.” She knitted her fingers together, took a quick drink from her own glass. “ _Pleasedon’tbemad_.”

“I promise I’m not mad, and it wasn’t my intent to upset you. ” Edelgard sighed. “I definitely don’t want to leave on that note though.” She offered kind eyes and a gentle smile. “How about some chamomile? Please allow me to make it.”

Bernie steadied her breathing, took five seconds to practice the counting Manuela taught her. She offered Edelgard her sweetest smile to show she was okay—because she really _was_ okay, and kept her eyes wide so there was no chance of her nascent tears actually dropping.

While Edelgard got the tea steeping, they continued on to cheerier topics. A little bit of the giddiness and levity returned, signaled by Edelgard laughing so hard she started sputtering into her teacup when Bernie told her about a bleary-eyed Linhardt needing to attend a meeting he hadn’t been expecting after someone came to find him in his smoking spot out by the old imperial crypts. Edelgard’s laugh made Bernadetta smile—it had snuck up on all of them, really.

She’d chortled before, or smiled at an antic. When she laughed, it was a Princess Laugh. Refined. Not like the loud bird calls Academy Bernie made then immediately stifled. But sometime after the war, something changed.

They’d seen it for a while. Edelgard looked a little more relaxed, day by day, as the marks of strife faded, until one night at dinner she had bent over her plate with shaking shoulders. Hubert thought Edelgard was having a seizure of some kind, which meant _Bernie_ thought that, too, because if he was reacting so seriously it had to be serious. When they realized Edelgard had merely been laughing so hard she was crying, well, Bernie tried to tell herself she didn’t see it when she looked at Hubert’s face, because he’d deny it, of course, but the first time she heard Edelgard laugh hysterically was also the first time she saw Hubert tear up. That moment was precious to her twice over.

His relationship with Edelgard was different. Bernie knew that. It always had been. She was fine with that. Ferdinand she couldn’t speak for, but she assumed he was too. Being in a relationship with Hubert required acknowledging Edelgard. Such declarations were not unusual, and she didn’t take them personally.

But she wondered if that had changed, expanded as time went on. Did he now entertain the same thoughts for Ferdinand? For Bernie? Did he say to himself, daily, as they went about their lives making breakfast or sewing or wandering the gardens, ‘If they but ask…’

Despite attempts to divert her thinking, Bernie couldn’t keep herself from imagining her husband carving open his own chest and offering her his heart, letting it drip on the white carpet of the suite they shared.

She’d never ask for it. The thought that she could and that she wouldn’t know what he’d do scared her.

She and Edelgard did end the night on a good note, smiling and chatting even as Bernie walked down the hall to Hubert’s rooms. She had her own. All the former Eagles did. But she hadn’t had a reason to go back to them for two years.

Most of the lights were out in the room by the time she unlocked the door and slipped inside. Even with the Thought still stinging her and making her spine buzz with fear, a deep sleepiness came along with it. Maybe she was just tired.

As she shut the door behind her, she started looking for Pila. Bernie was sure he hadn’t slipped out, as sure as she could be with her eyes intact, but she never wanted to go to bed until she saw the cat with her own eyes. Between her childhood home forbidding animals and the lean mousers of Garreg Mach, she’d never experienced the nervous domesticity of a housecat so round and tame that, if it wandered into nature, could really die. They all loved him. Even Hubert, who she knew to constantly be suppressing his disbelief at how Ferdinand managed to bring home the laziest kitten in Enbarr.

Granted the two times Pila got outside he’d cried and clawed at the door until Bernie or one of his papas came running to let him in, but Bernie was never going to be the reason he got out. Never ever.

She relaxed when she saw a round lump on top of the sofa, in his usual perch. There was a little light coming from a lantern in one of the bedrooms, enough to see by, and she could just make out his sparkling eyes and the bright piebald white spot on his chest. When he saw her, he mewed plaintively for pets, and Bernie paid tribute on her way to go change.

As she slipped into her nightgown, her eyes kept falling to the largest bedroom. She could sleep in her own room tonight, if she wasn’t feeling good, but then Hubert would ask her about it in the morning. She had her own space. He didn’t begrudge her that or pester her, but she _always_ spent the night with them after time with Edelgard, when she was supposed to be relaxed. Besides, she wanted to see him, put her hands on him, and maybe that would let her realize he was fine, that nothing happened or would happen.

A low lamp burned on the table as Bernie crept through the crack in the bedroom door and left it open behind her, just in case Pila decided to join them sometime in the night. Hubert was still awake, armed with the reading glasses she and Ferdinand had practically bullied him into getting. If asked, she’d swear they never piled up on him, they really didn’t, but that had been a matter of _health_ and _safety_.

As soon as Hubert saw her, he smiled—it was so tiny, almost missable in the light, and usually it made her so happy but tonight it just burned something further under her skin. She loved him. She loved him a lot. Why had Edelgard needed to remind her how he treated himself?

Ferdinand was shirtless and unconscious on Hubert’s other side, sleeping on his back with his head at an angle, reddish gold hair spread out in a wave in the space between his brow and Hubert’s ribs.

Hubert carefully folded away his glasses and used the unfair advantage of long arms to place his book on the nightstand and make room for Bernie all at once.

She crawled into bed with her husbands. Or rather, her husband and her husband’s husband. Legally speaking.

The second she was under the covers and able to press her knees to his thighs and her hands to his chest, she felt a little better. Reflexively, he kissed her, one of those soft kisses, casual, practically an impractical greeting, like a deep, familiar note of a favorite song.

“How was your evening with Her Majesty?” He asked at a casual whisper

“Good,” she said, maybe a little too quickly and highly. “The usual. Court gossip. We shared stories.”

“About me, I assume.” He said it with no hostility and no accusation, but if she was Pila her hair would have stood on end.

“No.” Bernie said it at a whisper, but no one would ever have accused her of being a good liar, at any volume.

“Is something wrong?” Hubert queried lightly, practically mumbling into Bernadetta’s mouth, trying not to wake Ferdinand, who kept snoring over the covered, bony mound of Hubert’s shoulder.

“I’m fine.” She shook her head. “My stomach is, just a little upset. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

He hummed into her, the kind of sound he made when he was thinking, but he let it go and wished her good night instead. As usual, his arm wrapped around her back with a fist of covers, like a cozy bat wing, and Bernie tried to settle in.

Hubert always complained of being cold, but to her, he was the perfect temperature, while sometimes she had to shove Ferdinand away along with the blankets he stole. She wanted to burrow into the crook of Hubert’s throat like she did on bad nights. And maybe this was a bad night, but she didn’t want him to know that.

‘ _Lady Edelgard, if you would prefer to treat this formally, then charge me with a crime. I would gladly bear my neck to the executioner_.’

She held back a sob. She _liked_ his neck and everything attached to it. A lot.

She wanted to stop thinking about this. She thought of his head between her legs as she whimpered. If he knew what he could do with his _tongue_ , he would never have said what he said. She was sure of it. She loved the feeling of carding her fingers through his hair, of knowing his beautiful brain was underneath, and Linhardt kept sharing treatises he’d read about electricity in the nerves, small sparks of light fueled by blood and that made her want to hold Hubert close from his jaw up and never let go, if he was so ready to give it up.

She loved Hubert so much. She wanted him to love him too.

Sleep didn’t make it go away. Sometimes it could do that, chase away needling thoughts that made her brain feel like it was on fire, but not this time. She woke up thinking about what Edelgard had said, and she woke up the day after thinking about it. The second night she spent in her room and Pila occupied the Ferdinand-Hubert situation by nestling between them as tightly as he could, and Bernie made do with her stuffed animals. She thought it would make her feel better—she had her own space particularly because she needed it, and when something was wrong that turned out to be the answer, or when Ferdinand talked in his sleep.

But she woke up in her marriage bed still thinking about Hubert losing his head and she woke up in her own bed still thinking about it. It wasn’t just a little missed stitch. She needed to act, tear out the seam and start over, though she had no idea how.

Her first opportunity emerged when Ferdinand mentioned, with a lot of tragedy in his voice, that Hubert would not be able to join him for tea. She’d eagerly offered to take his place, perhaps a bit too eagerly, but Ferdinand’s mood had lifted and a little bit of a calm shadow fell over Bernie’s nerves. Her and him, they never _ever_ ganged up on Hubert, well except for the glasses, but he was the closest thing she had to a partner in crime, so far as Hubert was concerned.

So Ferdinand served the tea in a little parlor apart from the Prime Minister’s office, and Bernie waited with her embroidery ring, wearing a white and green lace dress she’d made and a wide brimmed hat for gardening that was just long enough to hide her face from Ferdinand’s worker bees. It wasn’t dressing up, not exactly, but it was an appropriate enough outfit for the Prime Minister’s wife to be wearing—or the Prime Minister’s husband’s-wife.

He emerged into the room with his teapot and quickly, quietly, shut the door behind him. “Apologies, Bernadetta. When Hubert said he could not join me, I had not expected to have my normal tea time today!”

“It l-looks pretty busy today.”

“Nonsense. There is always time for you.” He made a bold flourish as he poured her drink, and then sat down as he offered her sugar cubes and a plate of scones. She delicately took one while he acquired two, and she took her first sip of tea. It _was_ good. “In fact, I would go so far as to say I am _delighted_ you joined me today.”

Bernie felt a little heat rise in her cheeks. Ferdinand, it was different with him, but she was charmed by him, by his boisterous kindness that had once been too much for her. It was occasionally still too much for her, but he knew not to take it personally when she needed to retreat to her room. Or if he did take it unto himself, she never heard a hint of a complaint.

She let out a heavy breath. Might as well get right to it. “I wanted to ask you. A question.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“About Hubert.” She kept her right hand planted firmly on the tablecloth. Linhardt said she wasn’t supposed to crack her knuckles.

“Is something the matter?” There was a glint, a little flicker across Ferdinand’s eyes, and she was grateful for that, because she could always read Ferdinand better than Hubert. “Do you think he’ll be going away again, soon?”

With a rising wave of panic, Bernie frantically replied, “No! Nothing like that. At least, I don’t think so.” She hoped not. “How do you...show him...that you care for him?”

“Oh.” Ferdinand’s cup froze on the way to his mouth, the most minute thoughtful frown falling across his face.

At first she was worried she’d thrown him, because it wasn’t like they lived entirely separate lives, though Hubert was frequently their link and their priority, she was in a relationship with Ferdinand too, and she knew very well how he showed his affections in some contexts, just not all. There were some things special to each branch of their young, frail sapling. “When we’re not all together, I mean.”

He placed the teacup back down. “I see. Well, aside from the obvious, I would say that you know how he can be. Expressing affection is hardly a problem, but getting him to accept it is an entirely different matter.”

She folded over her planted hands. “I’m _aware_.”

“However, when he does allow me to dote on him, it is typically when he is too tired to refuse.” She’d seen it. Seen Ferdinand scoop Hubert away from his writing desk when all Bernie had thought to do was find a spot on the floor to embroider, to be with him. “He also...is receptive to _rules and restrictions_.”

The heat in Bernie’s cheeks went up. Rules & Restrictions was code for the bedroom play that Hubert and Ferdinand did. It was play that Bernie was welcome to participate in, but thus far had not desired to. What if she forgot her word? What if she forgot the rules? And from time to time Ferdinand liked to be slapped—or more, she didn’t want to know, not for prudishness but because she didn’t want to think about the _sound_ —and Bernie couldn’t even be in the rooms when that happened.

She...would admit to curiosity about _some_ of it. But it had always been Ferdinand and Hubert’s _thing_ , not Ferdinand and Hubert and Bernie’s thing, and her curiosity had never overwhelmed her fear of crossing some hidden line. She swallowed. “What...kinds of _rules and restrictions_?”

“It depends,” Ferdinand responded. “Disregarding the things I know you would prefer not to discuss, I have at times ordered him to undress me. Or have made him shine my shoes.”

“But I was asking about what you do for him!”

Ferdinand gave her a look, one somewhat confused and chagrined. “He...seems to appreciate the opportunity. And—” Ferdinand held up a finger, as if coming to some brilliant point in an ongoing lecture series “—he is always very relaxed afterwards!”

Bernie smiled. That she was aware of. They were always careful, either not to leave marks or not to leave them where she could see them, and she did love crawling into bed with them when they were done, or lounging around with the heady, smothering atmosphere of aftercare. It was the only time she ever saw Hubert melted, when she could just take his arms and move them any which way and he would passively let her.

As his smile faded, Ferdinand took a sip of tea. “Bernadetta, you need not tell me, but...what inspired this?”

She gave a frantic shrug, a little hint of panic firing down her back. “I just...I don’t know. You know how Hubert is. About his body. About _himself_. I’ve been thinking about that, a lot lately. I cherish him, and I want him to feel it in his body, the way he is when you are d-done with him.”

Ferdinand, bless him, did not seem to fully understand all of what she was saying, but he did consider every word. “If you would like, I have a couple books on the subject.”

She perked up. “R-really? You’d let me borrow those?”

“Of course!” He nodded. “Thank Dorothea! She is the one who acquired them for me after those first few misadventures—”

“Ferdinand!”

“Apologies!” He eagerly shifted in his seat, a little pang of concern flitting through his excitement. “They are back in our rooms, in the lowest right hand corner of the bookshelf. You will not miss them.”

As if she did not know where every book in the suite was, but she eagerly nodded anyway, and took a nervous bite of her scone as a plan started forming in her head.

It became clear, immediately, that Bernie was not going to be able to do this the way the books suggested.

There was a lot of talk about things like, collars, and orders, and she’d been in battle, she had her battalions, she knew how to give orders, but the idea of degradation and calling him names didn’t sit well with her, because her whole point, her whole reason for doing this, was because she needed him to see how much she cared. Those were just examples in the books, but it left a bad taste. It didn’t _fit_. She also didn’t want to get into sex quite yet—she liked it, and she liked it with him, but that wasn’t what this exercise would be about.

So she’d asked Hubert, given him enough warning for what she wanted to try, though she didn’t go into detail. Bernie didn’t _have_ all the details. Though he looked surprised, he agreed quickly, which did not help the fear in her mind, of what he would agree to from her lips, but maybe she’d feel better then, if she had power over him and nothing bad happened, or it would just give her a way to get all her feelings out, let her just be with him and feel him breathing.

She’d asked him in the morning, and by the time he was off work in the evening she was ready. Or as ready as she would ever be. As soon as he stepped into his rooms, she took off his coat and cloak—he had had a late lunch with Ferdinand, which was a relief, because she’d _forgotten_ about that part of it.

So she sat him down on a wooden chair in her room and closed the door behind her, and then she looked around for the little lacquered box he’d given her for her birthday, the one she kept her trimming supplies in. When she spied it, she opened and produced him with a veritable rainbow of options.

“T-these are for you!” she declared. “For you to pick one.”

His eyes rolled up to her. He didn’t look skeptical, exactly, but he did seem slightly bemused as his hand drifted over all the lace and trim before selecting a red ribbon from the assortment and holding it up for her appraisal. She should have seen _that_ coming, should have predicted which color he would pick. And it looked like blood, and it wouldn’t help but she was committed now.

“I’m going to tie this around you. L-like a collar.” Her voice shook. “And while you’re wearing it, you have to let me take care of you.”

She saw his expression dim a little bit, though his small, calm smile remained in place. “As you wish, Bernadetta, although you seem rather tired.” The top of his shoe played at the side of her thigh. “Usually, in games like this, it is the person wearing the collar that must accomplish some task at the request of another. You could order me to massage your back? Make you tea? I would gladly do it.”

Bernie blinked, her hands freezing as she got the red ribbon around the back of his neck, the smooth side falling neatly over vertebrae and sensitive skin, looking for all the world like the line of a thin cut. This wasn’t helping. This wasn’t helping. She hadn’t been expecting that, though she should have been expecting that. By all knowledge and understanding of their history she should have known that was coming. When she got her wits about her, she gently pushed his boot back to the ground. “Well, this time it’s Bernie’s game. I’m making the rules, and these rules say I’m taking care of you today.”

He planted his shoe firmly back to the ground. “Forgive me. I don’t mean to look for loopholes.” There was a pause. “At the risk of seeming pedantic, should we have a word?”

“A word?” Bernie felt the answer as soon as she asked the question. She almost slammed her palm into her forehead.

A word. Of course. For safety. It was usually a word. But she was too afraid of forgetting one, or that he would.

“Right! A word. No. I mean, yes.” She gestured to the loose ends of the ribbon in her hands. “I’m going to tie this? If you want to stop, you can pull this thread, see?” She tied it once, demonstrating, before retying it and showing him which end to pull. “Now you try?”

Passively, he pulled until it dangled loosely from his neck.

“And don’t worry if it gets stuck,” she said, rapidly. “It shouldn’t, but if I see you reaching for it I’ll stop.”

“I will keep it in mind,” he said. “What will be your signal to stop?”

“Oh, right, um, I can pull the ribbon, too, see?” Experimentally, she clutched the end. She didn’t undo it again. “That can be the sign for both of us.” A beat. “W-what would you like, my love?”

“Very well,” he leaned back, and she immediately knew the look in his eyes meant mischief and trouble, or what passed domestically for mischief and trouble with Hubert. He reached for her hand. “One thing I would love is to rub your hands. They look very sore today.”

Immediately, Bernie felt the small hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “That’s _not_ something I can do for you.” She frowned. “You’re breaking the rules.”

He turned his head, the ribbon catching in the light, looking even redder and shinier against the part of his throat that never saw the sun less than Bernie did. “Oh, do you mean to _punish_ me?”

He sounded so sultry on that word, and Bernie sputtered as she searched for a response. What was he doing? Was he always this much of a pill for Ferdinand? This wasn’t going to plan at all. “I...will...make you think about what you’ve done. I’ve got feathers and I’m not afraid to use them.”

“Hmm, feathers. How intriguing.” He quirked his head. As frustrated as she was, she’d never seen him so _playful_. She’d have to file that away for later, but she’d been hoping he would ask for something, a massage, her to undress him. For coffee. She didn’t plan that far ahead, but she thought that with all he _did_ for her and Ferdinand, he’d know what to _want_.

“Well, that’s your first warning.” She was in over her head. “Here, let _me_ massage _you_.”

There. That sounded nice after a long day of work. It was something he did for her. She moved behind him, her quick hands going to the tight knots of his shoulders, and she started off, experimentally prodding her thumbs into the space just next to his spine. She felt him respond almost immediately, felt a reaction through his body that started at her palms and went down to his shifting legs, then back up to her as he rolled his neck. He spent more time at his desk these days than in the field, and she knew it took its toll.

But even after a couple minutes of steady work, he had relaxed no further. His spine didn’t crumple, and though he occasionally stifled a noise in his throat, his back remained ramrod straight. Bernie wasn’t good at this. She shouldn’t have improvised. Maybe if she just had more time, then he’d lose some of the granite in his muscles.

“I would,” he started, stopping around a little forced, pained noise, “very much like to do this for you.”

“Why won’t you just let me take care of you!?” It tore out of her, more quickly, more loudly than she expected and no. Oh No. She felt tears in her eyes. No, she had to stop, she was making a mess of it.

At that, Hubert turned to look at her, the game forgotten, one hand drifting up naturally towards her cheek.

“Bernadetta von Vestra.” Uh oh, full name. He reconsiders. “Bernie. What is this about?”

“You know I love you, right?” The surge came without warning, three days of worrying unleashed all at once and so fast one word nearly bleeds into the next. And she wasn’t yelling. Bernie never yelled, but her voice was high enough that a bystander might think she was mad with him when really she was mad at herself. “And you know I’d never ask you to do anything that could hurt you? You know that, right? For any reason. And neither would Edelgard. Or Ferdinand. But I need to know that if I did you’d say no, because if I did I...I’d never forgive myself and…” she tripped over her words, bent over on his lap and pressed her forehead into his chest. “And now you think I’m crazy—”

Before she knew it, his hands were on her shoulders. He pulled the loose thread of the ribbon from the bow, undoing the knot and moving her so quickly from his lap to her bed that he didn’t stop to take it from his neck. He let it hang like the ends of an exhausted tie, his eyes narrowed in thought, looking for a threat. She was sat on the edge of her bed, hands coming up to her neck and her back curving over because she’d really done it now, and—

“Would you like some water?” He asked carefully; she knows how much his voice drops when he’s concerned, and how he’s needed to train that hard edge out of himself when she goes _into shock_ because he can’t threaten her mind.

Bernie shook her head.

Hubert stayed still, his hand still pressed to her elbow. “I’m going to get some water. Will you be all right until I get back?”

She gave a fast nod as tears started pouring down her cheeks, before quickly wiping them away with her palm. She’d really done it now.

He left her room and marched off to the pitcher of water they kept in the living room. She heard the sound of ice ringing in a glass, and he came back holding a cup already frosting from the mixing of cold and warm air. Instead of handing it to her, he took a sip himself. His jaw worked, crushing a small chunk of ice like footsteps on crunching, half-frozen snow.

“It’s there if you need it.” Cautiously, Hubert sat next to her, hands folded in front of him.

“Let us begin,” he started, “by establishing that I am not angry.”

She unfolded slightly from under her shoulders, felt her head come up just a little from the sand in her ears.

“Next, Her Majesty has never asked me to do anything I did not want to do.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “She must often send her friends into death and danger, but never does so lightly. Neither have you, if that’s what troubles you.”

“She told me you said she could cut off your head if she wasn’t happy with you. Or have someone else do it.” His mouth went agape, and Bernie went down knuckle by knuckle, loudly popping each one as she spoke. Before she’d gotten to her middle finger, Hubert’s hands were already drifting firmly towards her palm to separate them. She didn’t want to cry again, but she was going to, and she tried to stop it even though he’d never said ‘ _stop crying_ ’. “And I know she wouldn’t. I really do. But I can’t stop thinking about it. If you said that to Edelgard when she was mad at you, what happens when we’re unhappy? I know I can’t do anything about what you’d do for Edelgard, but what I’m worried about is what you’d do for me. I want your love but I don’t want your actual, physical heart. I care too much about you and I need you to tell me what you wouldn’t do.”

He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Bernie thought she might have actually made him mad, in between that moment and the last one he’d told her he wasn’t. She’d been better about this for _so long_. Finally, he sighed into the hand on his forehead. “I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that’s what passes as friendly banter for the two of us.”

“I would believe that.” Bernie’s nails weren’t digging into her knuckles anymore.

He sighed. “May I hold you?”

She gave her assent by turning onto her side, laying down in tandem with him as he spread his long torso out on her bed. Facing away from his face, she planted her neck and cheek firmly on the starched white of his shirt. He wore no colognes and Bernie wore no perfumes, but from where her soppy nose was placed she picked up the faintest traces of formaldehyde and Ferdinand’s fancy soap.

She felt his hand hesitate over her head, hovering in midair for a moment before beginning gentle, soothing strokes down the river of her hair.

“Please allow me to list out events as I understand them,” he said. “You and Edelgard met for your regular gathering, where you discussed many topics, including me. We both know that Her Majesty, while a great woman who has earned every inch of our shared devotion, is entirely unable to stay composed after even small amounts of revelry.” As he said this, Bernie felt her lips quirk. “She shared the contents of a now very old—and I feel the need to mention, _private_ —conversation, leaving you with the impression that I’m merely walking around looking for a reason to fall on my sword.”

With each phrase, each tick on the timeline falling into place like a parlor scene in one of her mysteries, Bernie folded a little further into him, her cheeks going a little hotter. With her forehead fully pressed into his chest, because she couldn’t _look_ at him right then, she gave two rapid nods, reached up and swiped at her tears because his shirt was getting wet. He’d never told her not to cry but she _hated_ crying in front of him, crying _on_ him wasn’t much better—

One of his cold hands was stroking over her forehead. “You’re really not mad?”

“I am not,” he confirmed. “Not with you.”

She pufferfished. “I don’t want you to be mad at Edelgard either!” Oh no, if this drove a wedge between them, she’d never—

He sighed. “I will admit to questioning Her Majesty’s decision to bring this up now, but I also have nothing to hide. Surely it didn’t seem...out of character?’

Bernie relaxed her cheek onto him, even as she squeezed just a little tighter. “N-no! Not at all. That was, you know, that was part of the problem. She—Edelgard, I mean—she has a really good impression of you. Like a really good impression. And I could just hear you saying it, then I could picture it and—” her grip tightened again. “It was just really upsetting, okay? I know you aren’t always...careful. I love your passion—I think Ferdinand does too. You put your whole body into everything you do, but I _love_ that body.” She took a breath. “You’re _so_ doting. Maybe Bernie wanted to do the doting this time.”

“I see,” he hummed. “We have perhaps all needed to...unlearn certain habits born from years of strife.” His hand was stroking her forehead again. “But it is taken out of context. Edelgard and I often use a language of blood with one another—”

“—But did you m-mean it?” She curled around. “If you told me you were just _joking_ I’d believe you, but you weren’t just joking werent you? Everyone knows the best jokes only work because they’re a little bit true, or because people think they’re a little true.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “My intensity has often been noted. The feelings motivating that comment and others have some basis in reality. If it makes you feel any better, if you told me during an argument to cut my own throat, I would politely decline.” There was a pause, a heavy beat as Bernie’s spine felt a little bit lighter, because it did make her feel better. “However, to protect Edelgard, or Ferdinand, or you? There is also some truth to the idea that I consider my head a fair trade.”

Bernie’s mood once more went crashing down to earth. And she couldn’t hold him any tighter without squeezing the stuffing out. She didn’t want that either, not really, but it was disturbing in an entirely different way, because that was Hubert, through and through. They had always mitigated that, though. She and Ferdinand, they could protect Hubert in a way Edelgard couldn’t, because Ferdinand could rush ahead or Bernadetta was a good shot at a distance. “I just. Am very attached to your head, and everything it’s attached to and—oh dear, that was a miserable joke, wasn’t it?”

He chuckled his raspy tenor of a laugh.

Bernie shifted in her spot, her tears had dried at least, so she turned until she was facing his face instead of his shoes, her previously dry cheek now pressed into the damp mess she’d made of his chest. He let her use him as a pillow, and she didn’t understand how he couldn’t resent that, but somehow he remained married to her, so…

“I just want you to love you as much as I do,” she said, finally.

His gentle smile lost a hint of its heart. For a moment, Bernie thought she was looking at a marble statue. She didn’t _like_ that. “Do you always claim to care for yourself as I care for you?”

Bernie sagged onto him again, one hand planted firmly on his collarbone. No, of course Bernie couldn't say that. He always needed to clutch at her hands to keep her from cracking her knuckles, was usually the one who sat her down to help treat her hands after she spent all night working on a new costume for Dorothea. Not that Dorothea _made_ her do that, Bernie always volunteered. “N- _no_...Do you want me to?”

“I merely mention it to demonstrate that certain things do not always come easily to us.” She could hear his heartbeat under her ear, now that her own anxious hummingbird heart was calming down.

There was a polite little cough at the door.

A jolt of electricity went through Bernie. No, no, no, no no Hubert had accidentally left the door open when he’d gone to get water.

“Excuse me,” Ferdinand said from the doorway, voice quiet and pensive, hesitant and concerned, “I could not help but overhear my wife crying and my husband discussing decapitation.” There was a dense pause. “Is something the matter?”

Bones nearly vibrating out of her skin, Bernadetta hunkered down further towards Hubert’s chest. It had taken everything she had to tell Hubert, to explain to him what was wrong, she didn’t want to do it all over again with Ferdinand, but she didn’t want him to think they were talking about him, or that he would be left out. She glanced up, saw Hubert’s keen green eyes fall to her, waiting for her signal or cue. It was just too much responsibility. She gave a quick nod.

Hubert addressed Ferdinand, his own voice still at let’s-everyone-stay-calm-for-Bernie’s-sake levels. “Merely an old misunderstanding.” A glance. Bernie nodded again. “It is resolved, but you may join us if you like.”

Ferdinand hesitated, and Bernie couldn’t see him, but she wondered if he was questioning whether he wanted to get involved. Bernie didn’t cry as much as she used to, in the early days of their shared marriage, when she was worried the smallest mistake would ruin the whole thing. That was before she realized that neither Hubert nor Ferdinand were looking for a wife-wife, per se, and when she let herself accept that, it was a relief for all involved.

“I will just be one moment,” Ferdinand declared. She heard the sound of him walking away from her door, and there was some small amount of rustling in the living room, along with some soft cooing, before Ferdinand’s shadow appeared once more. “Bernadetta, it is the strangest thing. Someone heard what was happening and wanted to come tell you it will be okay, whatever it is.”

First the bed on Hubert’s other side dipped with Ferdinand’s weight, then Hubert gave a wheeze as Ferdinand deposited something heavy and soft right on his stomach. Bernie giggled as a fuzzy paw and leg stepped over her cheek, the rest of the cat soon to follow as Pila settled comfortably into the space between Bernie and Hubert. Ferdinand laid down, resting his head on Hubert’s shoulder and his hand on her head. His red hair was tied up with a loose strip of leather, and Hubert began absently running his left hand through Ferdinand’s wavy ponytail. At the same time, Bernie giggled as her hand fell to Pila’s side, and he both purred and stretched out dramatically over Hubert’s clavicle, nearly fully obscuring his face from her view. A cat tail flicked pleasantly between them, and Ferdinand leaned over to kiss them both—first Bernadetta’s forehead and then the side of Hubert’s mouth.

“I...know it has been resolved,” Ferdinand began, “but on an unrelated note, if I had heard those dearest to me grimly telling each other that they have a hard time loving themselves—which, I did not, but if I did hear such a thing—I would be honor bound to declare my affection for both thrice over.”

“It is a good thing you did not, in that case.” Hubert’s hand had gone up to hold Ferdinand’s head close. “Extrapolating from your usual expressions of love, I can only imagine that would be one operetta a piece.”

“I—do you _want_ an operetta?”

Bernie gave a honking, bird-shriek of a laugh, which she instantly smothered in Pila’s fluffy stomach. In response, the cat rolled further over like a dog, almost falling off of Hubert’s right shoulder.

They stayed like that for a while, until Ferdinand decided it was time to coax them to dinner. He exited her room first to make his way to Hubert’s kitchenette and prepare a meal most appropriate for the aftermath of a good cry.

Before she and Hubert left, Bernie took the red ribbon from earlier, and this time tied it loosely on Hubert’s wrist. He, in turn, took a green ribbon from the box and wrapped it around hers.

If they both ambushed Ferdinand while he was cooking to decorate his wrists in blue ribbons, he only smiled in response.


End file.
